FEBRUARY 2015

VOLUME 16, ISSUE 2

NATURALIST NEWS

Publication from Texas Master Naturalist, Elm Fork Chapter

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Bluebonnets and

Drummond’s phlox

www.pbase.com

FEBRUARY 2015

VOLUME 16, ISSUE 2

NATURALIST NEWS

Inside this issue:

President’s message 4

Recap January meeting 5

Keeping up 7

Staying involved 8

Features 10

Opportunities 14

Naturalist News helpers 18

Field Notes in Focus 20

Presidents Appreciation 21

Last word 22

Who are we? 23

Texas A&M AgriLIFE Extension

Elm Fork Chapter

In our community, Elm Fork Chapter of the Texas Master Naturalist

program will be recognized as a primary source of information, education

and service to support natural resources and natural areas today and in

the future.

”to develop a corps of well-informed volunteers who

provide education, outreach, and service dedicated to

the beneficial management of natural resources and

natural areas within our community”

Our mission. . .

Publication from Texas Master Naturalist, Elm Fork Chapter

Our vision. . .

Special points of interest:

Don’t miss opportunities coming up

Learn how to deduct travel expenses

on tax return for volunteer work

What’s the state insect?

Not so common dragonfly

Do you know your presidents?

Clockwise: Van Elliott

(bottom photo Judi),

Cheryl Ellis, Susan

Myers, Donna Wolfe,

Jan Hodson (behind

Donna), Jerri Marold,

Rob Roy, Don Fikes,

Linda Cox, Jan

Deatherage, Faith

Fielder. (absent from

photo: Janet Lami-

nack, Martha Peet,

Wanda Odum)

Photos courtesy

Judi & Van Elliott

—hard at work at January Monthly Meeting.

Your Board “acting naturally”

STAYING INVOLVED

FIELD NOTES IN FOCUS

WHO WE ARE

SEE YOU NEXT MONTH

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

THINGS TO COME

OPPORTUNITIES

CONTRIBUTORS

Be involved—mark your

calendar for February

and into March Jan Deatherage, Joanne

Fellows, Don Fikes,Van

Elliott, Judi Elliott, Doro-

thy Thetford, Bob Ross,

Alex Lieban, Peg La

Point, Marilyn Blanton

From the archives —

Great horned owl

What is Texas’s official

insect?

What Naturalist News is offering this month . . .

Page 3 VOLUME 16, ISSUE 2

Could we extend this meet-

ing? I still have a lot of

complaining to do.

Nice to meet you!

Good news

March 19 meeting:

Bob Mione on Conne-

mara Conservancy

February 19 meeting:

Annual awards

LAST WORD

FEATURES

1. Keep Trophy Club Wild

2. TNPS 2014 Art Exhibit

1. Not so common dragon-

fly

2. It’s tax time again

3. A month full of holidays

4. New family tree for birds

Presidents’ appreciation

THANK YOU!

Recognitions with pins

and certificates for

hours completed given

at January meeting

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Page 4 NATURALIST NEWS

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

T he Wisdom of Crowds

C rowdsourcing has become an accepted practice in the corporate world. Frito Lay uses it every year for their Superbowl commercials for Doritos. If you haven’t seen this year’s spot, here’s a link:

"http://www.superbowl-commercials.org/35233.html" The winner of this contest won $1 million. Good ideas come from everywhere.

W hy does this matter to you? Already this year, just a few weeks into 2015, we’ve re-ceived two requests for speakers, one inquiry for a knowledgeable source on fungi, and one inquiry about converting a private landowner’s acreage into an environmen-tal education/preservation area. So far, two of the four have been sourced and we

are working on the other two. It’s great that we are getting these inquiries and I expect that there are several more headed our way. After all, it’s what we do, right?

Our Vision Statement set the course two years ago.

“In our community, Elm Fork Chapter of Texas Master Naturalists will be recognized as a primary source of information, education and service to support natural resources and

natural areas today and in the future.”

H ere’s where you come in. In the next few days, you will be receiving an email with a link to complete a survey regarding your self-rated knowledge on areas of interest in nature. It’s a

short, simple exercise to learn more about who knows what in our chapter. The goal is to source your knowledge and link it to our community’s demand for information.

Your knowledge, interest and creativity are needed. The demand is there. Now we need to answer that demand with our crowd’s collective wisdom. Let's see how well we can do it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing is the process of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by solicit-ing contributions from a large group of peo-ple, and especially from an online communi-ty, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers.

Jan

De

ath

era

ge

Challenge: “keep up the

momentum into 2015”

“How wonderful it is that

nobody need wait a single

moment before starting to

improve the world.”—Anne

Frank, Diary of a Young Girl

At January 15 meet-ing: New board mem-bers were recognized

and President Jan Deatherage and Vice-

President Martha Peet presented many, many

certificates and pins for hours earned.

Sharon Clark, Brad Forrester, Jane

Hall, Irene Hanson, Theresa Hicks-

Jackson, Larry Jackson, Ray Kreutz-

feld, Tom Mills, Andie Milton, Mary

Morrow, Jonathan Reynolds, Kris

Robinson, Judy Riley, Ellen Ryfle, Erin

Taylor, Nancy Waldo (alphabetical

order)

Nadine Beall, Adelaide Bodnar, John Bodnar, Raquel Bryson, Polly Carter, Jean Chaka,

Ivy Doak, Deborah Estes, Faith Fielder, Kevin Frerich, Janet Gershenfeld, Bill Hammon,

Diana Hatch, Larry Jackson, Richard Johnson, Shelby Kilpatrick, Susan Kilpatrick, Ray

Kreutzfeld, Alex Lieban, Beverly

Lyttaker, Tom Mills, Andie Milton,

Mary Morrow, Carolyn Norgaard,

Judy Riley, Kris Robinson, Bob

Ross, Cindy Schlaht, Chuck

Thetford, Dorothy Thetford, Diane

Wetherbee, Norma Wilkerson

(alphabetical order)

Re-certifications

Initial certification

Photos— Alex Lieban

Recognition for hours completed

Page 5

NATURALIST NEWS

President Jan Deatherage takes the chair and begins charting the chapter’s course by building

on 2014’s accomplishments. The following have earned significant hours during last quarter.

clipart

clipart

Elm Fork Chapter set to soar above ordinary in 2015

Photo— Alex Lieban